About a month or so ago, one of my friends asked me if I wanted to join her for One Piece Night at Dodger Stadium on July 2, 2026 during the night the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the San Diego Padres. She wanted to go because they were giving away One Piece gift bags consisting of a Luffy straw hat and a collectible trading card, and she really wanted those exclusive items. I don’t really care at all about One Piece, but this is a friend who I trust and enjoy spending time with, so I agreed to come along.

She told me that she had never been to a baseball game before, and this would be her first time. I immediately had a flashback to Hello Kitty Night 2025 and realized I had this untapped encyclopedia of knowledge in my brain about how to go to a baseball game without wanting to kill yourself. I told her that I would help handle a majority of the logistics so that we can have as pleasant of an experience as possible.

I first looked into buying individual tickets to shared suites, but upon more diligent research, I found out that there is a high risk of those kinds of shared suite tickets not coming with a gift entitlement, which would defeat the purpose of us going. I then looked into some tickets classed as “baseline club” and “dugout club,” which came with private lounge access and front-row seats to the action; those were between $1,000-2,000 per ticket. I would’ve been fine getting those tickets, but after discussing with my friend, we decided to go for something cheaper as a trial for her first baseball game, because she didn’t know if she would even enjoy the game at all.

I ultimately decided on executive club seats, which were a much more reasonable ~$400 per ticket. Although they didn’t come with a private lounge, they were on the same floor as the suites, which meant that it was much more peaceful and less congested than the regular general admission floors.

Our welcome email told us that the entry gates open two hours before the game starts, and the parking lot opens an additional half an hour before that. We ended up arriving about three hours before the game started because my friend wanted to make absolutely certain that they wouldn’t run out of gift bags. We were expecting to need to wait before being let in, but apparently, so many people were arriving so early that day that they were backed up into the street and causing a traffic jam, so they had no choice but to start letting people in early.

Two and a half hours before the first pitch, the lines to get in were already completely packed.

Fortunately, the executive club seats also come with priority access. The line was still pretty long, but nowhere near as long as the loge and reserve entrances. We had to wait for a while, but there was a friendly guy in line near us who was chatting with us, and that combined with conversing amongst ourselves made it so the wait didn’t feel that long.

Upon walking through the metal detector and passing security, we were given our straw hat and collectible card. After that point, there were no more lines for the rest of the night.

This is the entrance to the suite and club level of the field.

We made our way over to our seats in Section 229CL. This was the closest section next to where the suites start, so in theory, we were in the section with the next best possible elevated view without being inside an actual suite. I also liked that this section had an overhang; it didn’t matter for this particular game, but it sounds very convenient as shade for days when the game starts earlier, or as shelter for days when it rains.

This is what the rest of the club level looked like. As you can see, it is substantially nicer than general admission, and I think it is absolutely worth the upcharge. There are far fewer seats, more legroom, nice padding on the seat bottoms, and more space to walk around. In general, this space felt far more relaxed and easy-going than the other levels of the stadium.

The collectible cards came in their own plastic packaging, but my friend wanted to be extra safe and put the cards in another layer of hard plastic covers. We went as a group of three, and these are the three cards we got.

I told her to take pictures of the cards with her at the stadium so that the photographs could act as a substitute certificate of authenticity, in case she ever wants to sell them. However, she ultimately decided that the cards made her happy and she wanted to keep them for her own collection.

There was a lot of One Piece branding spread out throughout the stadium for the collaboration, including on the massive screens in the outfield.

The elevation of this level was perfect—far away enough that you could get a perfect bird’s-eye view of the entire field, but not so far away that everything was too small. Because we arrived early, we were able to see the players warming up.

There were some signs on the wall near the concession stand, and I tried to use it as reference to find out how to navigate to other areas of the stadium. … Then I found out that they were just decorative.

This is the view from the outfield, from the far edge of the club level. I walked over here because I was looking for a set of stairs to use to go downstairs to the loge level because my friend wanted some pizza, and there was no pizza concession stand on the suite and club level.

This far edge of the club level also had a view of the entrance. I thought it was a very funny visual seeing everyone wearing their straw hat on the inside of the gate.

We made it down to the loge level and I basically got an episode of PTSD from my prior Dodger Stadium experience. There was still about two hours to go before the first pitch, so most people still hadn’t arrived yet, but it was still absolutely packed. It wasn’t shoulder-to-shoulder like it is after the game starts, but it was still extremely congested. My friend said that she was instantly overstimulated by how many people there were everywhere already.

… Here is a random picture of a cameraman.

After walking all the way around from left outfield to first base, we made it to the pizza vendor, Batter’s Box Pizza.

My friend got a personal cheese pizza, and I got a personal pepperoni pizza. There was not enough sauce, but it was still extremely salty. It was very doughy, so I guess you’d like this pizza if the crust is your favorite part of pizza. I was not a fan of this pizza.

For my drink, I ordered a fruity non-alcoholic mocktail. It tasted like I was served a full cup of ice with a little bit of pineapple juice and grapefruit juice mixed in.

While enjoying my pizza and juice, I was able to watch the crew prepare the field for play.

In celebration of One Piece Night, someone got dressed up in a Luffy costume and threw the first pitch.

After celebrating his pitch, Luffy went up to the cameras and officially declared the start of the baseball game.

I noticed that this particular section of seats was empty for some reason. It was funny thinking that maybe someone just bought out all the seats in that area because they happened to be cheaper and they just wanted to collect more gift bags. The collectible cards from previous collaborations have sold on auction websites for several hundreds to thousands of dollars, so technically, I guess this could be quite a lucrative way to make a profit.

To the grave disappointment of Los Angeles Dodgers fans, the San Diego Padres started the game with quite a substantial lead.

The personal pizza wasn’t enough to fill me up, so I also ordered some surf and turf tacos. I am pretty sure they put about six times more salt into the tacos than the recipe called for. They were edible, but not even remotely good, and I would never get them again.

I ordered this along with some Diet Coke in a standard, non-souvenir fountain drink cup. It was much smaller than I expected, and it is unfortunate that fountain drinks do not come with refills, but fortunately, I was able to get free tap (non-bottled) water.

My friend got ground beef nachos. They were marginally better than the tacos, but still way too salty.

For dessert, we shared a churro sundae. This was the best thing we ate at the stadium—not because it was delicious, but because it was the only thing that wasn’t bad. It basically tasted like generic ice cream that you’d get in bulk from a grocery store.

Partway through the game, my friend decided to enter the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation’s 50/50 Raffle. This is a program where you buy raffle tickets and your purchase price is added to a jackpot pool. At the end of the eighth inning, a winner is selected from the raffle tickets; the winner wins half the jackpot, and the other half of the jackpot is donated to the charity.

The raffle entries scale up depending on how much you spend. If you pay US$20, you get 10 tickets; if you pay US$50, you get 50 tickets; if you pay US$100, you get 150 tickets; and if you pay US$150, you get 300 tickets. My friend opted to get 300 tickets for $150, so she ended up with a comically long receipt with all her raffle entry numbers.

At the seventh inning stretch, I got up from my seat and went to the edge of the suite level beyond the overhang so I could get a picture of everyone standing up with their Luffy straw hats on.

One nice thing about having executive club seats is that you get your own server who will take your orders and deliver food and drinks directly to you. Apparently they can also arrange special celebration desserts, like for this person who was celebrating his birthday.

At the bottom of the eighth, the winner of the 50/50 Raffle was selected. My friend did not win. In fact, she failed to even match the third digit…

With only one strikeout to go at the top of the ninth, we left our seats and headed downstairs to the field level. The Los Angeles Dodgers had a hefty lead by this point, so it seemed like the bottom of the ninth would not be played and the Dodgers had basically secured a win already.

The reason we came all the way down? Because we heard that there would be a One Piece drone show after the game ended, and they would be letting fans onto the field to watch the show from there so they can get a better view. It seems like other people were aware of this as well, because field level was packed with people waiting (with their straw hats on, of course) for the gates to open.

After the game was fully wrapped up, they opened the gates and a flood of fans entered the field.

They soon dimmed the lights in preparation for the drone show.

In an ultimate bait-and-switch, the drone show started… far in the distance. The view was blocked by the structure of the stadium. I’m pretty sure we would’ve gotten a better view just by staying in our seats.

Regardless, it was neat to be able to go on the field, and I’m glad I was able to get that opportunity. I didn’t even get to do that when I went on the paid tour last time, so it was nice that they let fans have that experience for free after the game.

In an effort to try and get a better view, we walked out of the stadium, but then we had some issues with tall trees blocking a portion of the drone show instead.

On our way out into the parking lot, I saw a jumbo replica of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2025 World Series Championship ring.

I didn’t wear the straw hat at all during the game, but I figured I should probably at least get a goofy picture with it at the end, for the memories. So, here I am with the Luffy straw hat. … I look like a rice farmer.

Overall, I had quite a fun and pleasant experience this time around. The type of seats you buy absolutely matters at Dodger Stadium, and I think the premium price of executive club seats was beyond worth it for the money. It was a perfect balance of getting both a public and private experience—public in the sense that you still feel like you’re in the middle of the action, but private in the sense that you have your own special floor with far fewer other people to deal with.

In addition to this High Summer 2026 menu for US$250 per person, there were two other tasting menu options—a signature tasting menu for US$195, and an extended Restaurant Week prix fixe menu for US$120. The signature tasting menu had a wine pairing for US$125 and a premium wine pairing for US$295. I opted for High Summer not only because it was new, but also because it seemed from the course list that it was far better value than the signature menu in terms of the variety of courses and the amount of food. Furthermore, the other menus had a bunch of supplements for add-ons or upgrades to more premium items, while the High Summer menu basically had everything included.

On the day of my dinner, I walked to the Bellagio and made my way into the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Garden, as the entrance to Michael Mina is situated inside the installment. When navigating the Las Vegas Strip by public transportation or by foot, I always give myself a bit of a buffer in case I run into unexpected delays, such as landing on unlucky Monorail timing or running into dense tourist congestion. On this day, it wasn’t too busy, so I arrived a bit early; while I waited for my reservation time, I strolled through the Conservatory until the hostess showed up at her podium outside the front entrance of Michael Mina.

I was seated deep into the restaurant. They already had a small, one-person table prepared for me, likely in response to my reservation placed ahead of time. The table was all the way in the center-rear close to the windows, so I had a nice view of the entire restaurant.

On a somewhat related note, this made for an interesting conundrum with regards to photography. Because I was seated next to the windows, I had fantastic natural sunlight. However, the rest of the restaurant was extremely dim. As a result, due to the intensity of the angled sunlight and the darkness of the rest of the restaurant, all my pictures had exaggerated highlights and shadows. I tried to fix it as best I could in post-production using my camera’s sensor data and the raw image files, but my skill in that is nowhere close to where I would like it to be, so as a disclaimer, some of the food might seem unnaturally saturated or vibrant in some of my pictures.

 
The tasting menu started with a caviar parfait with smoked salmon, crème fraîche, and egg mimosa.

The waiter recommended that I grab this with my fingers and eat the entire thing in one bite. This was actually quite sizable, so I had to stretch my mouth to near maximum height in order to fit this in. I technically could’ve eaten it “sideways” by putting the caviar portion into my mouth first, but I wanted to keep it “upright” so that, when I bite down, it mixes all the ingredients optimally in my mouth.

As you’d probably expect from a dish like this, it was an absolute explosion of incredible flavor. I really like caviar, and having that mixed in with other intense flavors made it almost overstimulating. This caviar parfait was basically like if you had an attribute slider on how delicious you wanted something to be, and you just cranked it all the way up as high as it can go.

I looked at some old Michael Mina menus online and saw this listed on some tasting menus as a supplement for US$55. This might sound crazy to hear me say this about a single bite of food, but if you are a caviar enthusiast, I’d go as far as to say that trying this at that price point is worth it, as this really pushes your taste buds to their limits and may enlighten you on just how much flavor a single bite of food could possibly have.

Next was ahi tuna crudo with Dapple Dandy pluot, umeboshi, and mint.

This was a refreshing crudo dish that helped restabilize my taste buds after the caviar parfait, and it had a grounding effect to prepare me for the rest of the dinner. This had a fun eating experience, as part of it involved dissecting and unraveling the rose, and then reconstructing each bite with a bit of tuna and a bit of pluot to combine the flavors evenly.

Then came the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market tomato and melon with Marcona almonds, sheep’s milk feta, passion fruit, and basil.

The mixture of tomato and melon was quite nice, and I don’t think it’s a combination that I’ve ever had before. The almonds added a great depth to its texture that made the chewing experience more fun. I’m usually not a fan of feta cheese because I think it smells like a combination of mold and vomit, but this feta was actually quite mild and not pungent. The sauce underneath was amazing. It added a creamy and gritty element to the dish, and its slightly earthy flavor worked well with the lighter and refreshing tomato.

In between the next two dishes, I was served an off-menu naan bread with three different kinds of sauces. The waiter explained with great detail what ingredients each of the sauces had, but I forgot the specifics.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first dark brown sauce, but the tan and white sauces were great. The bread was a bit too oily for my preference, but it was a type of pure oiliness that was different than greasiness, so it didn’t feel heavy or cloy at all.

The first main entrée was Australian black truffle with house-made tagliatelle, 24-month aged parmesan, and pistachio streusel.

I’m a fan of truffle and enjoyed the Australian truffle in this dish, but the rest of it was too salty and didn’t align with my personal preference (my best guess being that the aged parmesan cheese probably tarnished the entire dish’s flavor profile for my own taste buds). With that being said, I could still tell that it was a high-quality, well-made dish. Even though it wasn’t my favorite, I still finished the entire thing because it was still plentifully palatable, and I wanted to analyze it. It was rich and flavorful, and if you like aged cheese and/or salty foods, then you’d probably be a big fan of this pasta.

The second entrée was applewood-grilled branzino with hazelnut and saffron romesco, zucchini pistou, and black olive gremolata.

I love grilled fish, but believe it or not, this was my least-favorite dish of the night. The texture of the fish skin was a bit soggy. The flavor profile of the sauces was a bit vague and not particularly memorable. In my personal opinion, the sauces didn’t really seem complementary to the fish or zucchini. The fish itself had a bit of an unusual taste to it, almost as if it had been cleaned with heavily chlorinated water. It ended up leaving an aftertaste that lingered for a few minutes. (With that being said, it is very possible that this was just a bad batch and I got unlucky.)

To top it all off, they even spelled zucchini wrong on the menu and wrote it as “zuccini,” which, to my knowledge, is just a typo and not a different thing.

Next up was charcoal-roasted shellfish with red miso butter, Brentwood corn fondue, and charred lemon. Although I’d say that the caviar parfait was my favorite dish of the meal in terms of flavor, this shellfish was my favorite dish of the night if you rate it holistically with all elements beyond flavor as well.

Although just serving the highest possible quality of food during a tasting menu is great, I think they should have at least one innovative, creative, fun, and/or interactive dish if they want to ensure that the experience is memorable. This shellfish dish was absolutely that kind of dish.

They basically came out with a little campfire in a bowl. There were some shrubs and charcoal actively on fire and smoking in the middle. There was a scallop, some lobster, a few pieces of miniature corn, and a few small potatoes surrounding the fire. To eat it, I removed the seafood from its shell or the vegetable from the skewer, dipped it in the fondue, and held it above the fire to allow it to absorb the charcoal flavor.

All the seafood was very tender and flavorful. The fondue added a deeper level of richness to the food, but was still light enough that it didn’t make the seafood taste heavy. The smoke got a little overwhelming after a while, but that was an easy fix; I just placed the scallop shell on top of it to block the rising smoke, and then removed it when I needed it again to “roast” another piece of food.

Next up was Muscovy duck breast and foie gras with Kabu turnip, pickled green strawberry, and red walnuts.

This was a nice, solid, well-rounded dish. The duck breast was cooked fairly rare, which aligned perfectly with my preferences. The foie gras added a deep richness to each bite of duck. This dish made me realize that I don’t think I have ever seen foie gras paired together with duck before, which I guess is ironic. This combination worked well, and the turnips and strawberry were decent to cut through a little bit of the fattiness of the foie gras.

The final entrée of the tasting menu was prime Brandt New York strip with Mendocino porcini, black cherry, and smoked béarnaise.

This dish was fine, but not remarkable. The béarnaise sauce was incredibly salty, so I had to make sure I mixed it together well with all the steak, mushrooms, and cherries, otherwise it was so salty that it borderlined bitter. The steak had a larger ratio of fat than I would’ve preferred (and not the well-marbled kind). It was still okay, and probably made sense to include in the tasting menu as the red meat dish that adds variety to the seafood-heavy flavor storyline.

I had the option of upgrading this New York strip to a triple-seared Miyazaki wagyu for an additional US$55 supplement. I passed and just stuck with the New York strip steak. Miyazaki wagyu is definitely delicious, but as someone who mainly likes seafood and is trying to lower saturated fat consumption to maintain heart health, wagyu isn’t really something I go seeking out anymore.

As the meal was approaching its end, I was presented with my first of two desserts: Golden Lady mango shaved ice with coconut espuma and Santa Barbara finger lime, topped with an edible gold leaf.

Usually, I know shaved ice to be somewhat of a watered-down version of whatever flavor it’s supposed to resemble. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I ate some of this shaved ice and found it to be somehow more intense in mango flavor than just eating an actual mango. This was almost as if they had frozen dehydrated mangoes so that the taste of the mango was more concentrated, and then shaved that into ice.

And finally, the last dish of the tasting menu was a Valrhona dark chocolate soufflé with Madagascar vanilla crème anglaise and salted caramel ice cream.

This was “prepared tableside” to an extent, where the soufflé was cut in half and the salted caramel ice cream was placed on top. The temperature contrast between the soufflé and ice cream was nice, and the soufflé was very fluffy. I also appreciated the fact that it was pleasantly sweet, but not too sweet.

Here are some photographs that I took of the interior of the restaurant. Remember that I was the first person to show up this day, right as they opened their doors, so that’s why the restaurant seems empty. The tasting menu took right around two and a half hours to finish. This was a random Thursday evening, so it never really got fully packed at any point, but it was still decently busy during peak dinner hours.

High Summer 2026 tasting menu	$ 250.00
Gratuity (18%)	$  45.00
Sales tax (8.375%)	$  20.94
Total	$ 315.94

The table to the right shows how much I paid.

Overall, I am highly satisfied with this tasting menu, and I think it is very worth it. A lot of restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip have a huge tourist mark-up, but I think the pricing of Michael Mina’s High Summer 2026 tasting menu is very reasonable and comparable to something you’d find in a big city without any special tourist mark-ups. Of course, it is still an expensive meal, but it’s not crazy compared to other fine dining restaurants.

Speaking of fine dining, I loved that Michael Mina was an effortlessly high-end restaurant. I don’t like restaurants that shove “fine dining” down your throat by exaggerating how luxurious they are. Michael Mina does fine dining the right way by being quietly and subtly elegant, and the way they demonstrate that they are a fine dining restaurant is through the food and service. The attentiveness of the staff was top-tier and perfectly balanced; they were not intrusive, but they were extremely prompt in taking away empty plates, replacing used utensils, and refilling half-empty water glasses.

After my meal, the assistant general manager came to me and asked how I liked the tasting menu, considering that I was the first person to try it. I told him that it was great, and I asked him how much detail he wanted me to go into. He said that he wanted as much detail as I was willing to give, so I basically gave him an abridged version of what you just read here in this blog post.

He was very attentive and curious about my opinion. He seemed pleased when I pointed out the positives, and was very concerned and interested in learning more when I pointed out the negatives. For example, when I talked about the strange taste of the fish, he seemed genuinely distraught because they pride themselves in the freshness of their food; he said that he would promptly address it with the kitchen and make sure they taste the current batch of branzino to determine the best path forward.

After a long conversation, the assistant general manager thanked me for my detailed feedback and opinions, to which I responded that I’m always happy to talk about food and learn more about how chefs express their creativity through cuisine. He joked about how he felt like he basically just interviewed me, and offered me a complimentary glass of champagne in return. I told him that I don’t drink alcohol, but let him know that I appreciate the gesture. He then offered me a non-alcoholic drink from the bar instead, but I respectfully declined that as well. (The reason I am explicitly pointing that out here is to clarify that I received literally no gifts or incentives from the restaurant that may sway the neutral integrity of my review.)

If you enjoy seafood and are looking for a nice dinner on the Las Vegas Strip, I think the High Summer 2026 menu at Michael Mina might be one of the best seasonal options available at the moment. I forgot to ask for how long they’re running this menu, but I imagine it should be sticking around until at least the end of summer.

It’s rare for me to go back to high-end restaurants a second time because I want to prioritize experiencing a lot of different locations instead, and I don’t have an infinite supply of time and money. However, based on my positive experience at Michael Mina, this is definitely a spot where I’d go back to try their winter menu if it is different enough from their summer one.

The closest I got to being a collector was buying singles of every different Absol Pokémon card in every rarity, variant, and language I could find. I started doing that in 2018 and it lasted a little while before I lost interest. Nowadays, I only revisit it once every couple of years to see if there are any easy gaps in my collection to fill in from recent releases.

This may sound ironic or counterproductive, but… the fact that I am not a collector is actually the precise reason why I decided to go to this convention. I’ve been to a lot of conventions, but I noticed that they were mostly just the same ones over and over again. For example, I got sick of going to PAX twice a year, every year, and basically seeing the exact same thing time after time. Upon this realization, I decided that I will no longer go to PAX anymore unless I am invited to be a speaker or something, and I will generally avoid conventions that are just repeats of ones I’ve been to in the past. Instead, I want to check out conventions, events, and shows that are different from what I’m used to.

Collect-A-Con is still pretty related to video games, so it wasn’t that new to me. Also, my friend Erin Song, who runs the AgentDMG collectibles brand and consignment company with her husband, was also attending Collect-A-Con Las Vegas, so it wasn’t like I was going into it completely alone and blind. Regardless, it was still an adventurous step into new territory for me.

Upon arriving at the Las Vegas Convention Center, I picked up my wristband and headed into the hall. My first impression of it was that the convention didn’t really seem like a convention. Instead, it felt like a really big farmers’ market, but for cardboard instead of food.

When I think of a convention, I imagine a gathering of a broad variety of industry-specific professionals and enthusiasts who are all coming together to contribute their own little piece of the industry. For example, I expect to see companies premiering new flagship additions to their product lines, start-up companies seeking investment or capital, innovators showing off the latest technology and other developments, sponsors and advertisers selling goods, presenters and speakers sharing knowledge, students seeking to build a network for future employment, and entertainers providing color and flavor to the event, among others. However, when I walked into Collect-A-Con, an overwhelming majority of the booths were just people who were buying and selling trading cards.

With that being said, there were still a few booths that were unique and distinct. For example, I especially liked the ones that had custom-made art and other goods based on the intellectual property of their favorite franchises (and I will conveniently ignore the fact that they most likely did not get a proper license to do so, because it’s nice to see people’s passion projects). I also liked the live music.

Within several minutes of my arrival, I noticed some music coming from the far rear of the convention hall. I slowly made my way through the crowd and to the stage in the back, at which point I discovered that it was Jason Paige singing. I recognized him as the person who sang the original Pokémon theme song for the cartoons. He was performing a small set of Pokémon and Pokémon-related songs, and he closed his show with the main theme song that I (and probably many other people) know him for.

This was overwhelmingly my favorite part of the show. I’m someone who watched Pokémon as a kid, and when I do live stream broadcasts on my Twitch channel and take song requests, I often get asked to play the Pokémon theme song. Thus, it was quite exciting to see it being performed live in front of me as a surprise by the vocalist who originally sang it. Apparently Jason Paige is one of the recurring headliners of Collect-A-Con and does a small set every time, but because this was my first time at this convention, it was my first time seeing Jason Paige, and it was a great experience.

What made this extra funny is that Jason Paige is apparently a particularly controversial figure among the card collector community. Specifically, he was recently accused of “scamming” a child during a trade-up challenge. I was curious and did some research into it, and I found out that the accusation was made by some random guy named Bryan Kuznitz from “Boosters and Bangers Collectibles” who did a combination of making up fake facts and leaving out important context to try and make Jason Paige look bad. I didn’t look for it myself to confirm because I’m not interested in scrolling through Bryan’s social media profiles, but he allegedly posted a follow-up video apologizing for misleading the community, which is an implied admission of guilt.

With that being said, apparently there are a lot of people who just don’t like Jason Paige—in general, and unrelated to this false scamming accusation incident—which is fine. This was evident by the confused reactions I got when people would ask me what I liked most about the convention, and I answered that my favorite part was Jason Paige singing the Pokémon theme song. I don’t know Jason personally and did not even go to his meet-and-greet or autograph session afterwards. However, I can say for sure that I thoroughly enjoyed the three minutes during which he sang the Pokémon song, and I thought it was fantastic.

My overall assessment of Collect-A-Con is that I am glad I went once to see what it’s like, but I most likely would not attend again in the future. I think this is heavily catered towards people who like actually buying and selling physical collectibles, and the amount of activities to do outside of that is very limited. I’d be willing to tag along with some friends again if they wanted to go to the Las Vegas stop of the Collect-A-Con tour circuit and I didn’t have to travel anywhere for it, but that would mainly be just to spend time together with friends, rather than for the convention itself.

Of course, I took a lot of pictures at the convention. I didn’t really have a structured plan for my photography; basically, whenever I saw something that looked remotely interesting, I snapped a shot. Here is a random collection of photos I took of random things around me, with no particular meaning or significance in their selection or order:

This particular friend’s birthday is actually in late April, but I was not available to travel to Southern California during the times when she was free, so we ended up being over a month late for her dinner. However, last week, we finally made some time to head over to Encino Place, the shopping center where Sushi by Scratch is located.

Similar to last time, we were invited to optionally arrive up to half an hour early for canapé service. This is done in a separate area of the restaurant while the chefs are at the omakase bar preparing for dinner service. Of course, I’m not going to pass up on extra food, so we arrived about 20 minutes before our designated reservation time.

I’m not sure why they call this an optional part of the experience, because I think the canapé service is a major element of the Sushi by Scratch experience. To be clear, these are not just some random small snacks that you can get from a grocery store; these are delicious, high-quality dishes that, although small, are still things that you’d probably find listed on fine dining menus at around US$10.00 each, or more.

The first small plate we got was a prawn dish; the prawn was decently sized, had a satisfying texture, was rich in flavor, and came served with a great sauce. We requested a non-alcoholic substitution to the welcome drink, so we received a citrusy tea instead.

The next bite was a miniature tuna roll topped with salmon roe. This was familiar, and looking back, I noticed that this was the same as one of the canapés that we were served at the Beverly Hills location.

For our last small dish before heading into the omakase bar, we were given some Japanese egg custard.

This is a picture of the “holding area” where we enjoyed our canapés. Surprisingly, a lot of people showed up only a few minutes before the 5 PM reservation time for our round of omakase. I feel like that is a big mistake on their end; if you’re paying premium prices for dinner, I’d imagine you’d want to have as much food as possible, considering how good it is.

Once attendance was taken and everyone was accounted for, the waiter gathered us all together and escorted us deeper into the building, into the dimly-lit main restaurant area. Although slightly different in design, it still had the familiar four-by-four grid of nigiri items written on miniature wood-bordered blackboards that I remembered from the Beverly Hills location. This “course list” allowed us to set our expectations for what we’d be eating that night.

After we were all seated, the bartender checked in with each of us and took our drink orders.

There was a designated wine pairing, but no non-alcoholic pairing. I did notice that there were two mocktails on the menu, so I figured I’d build my own pairing and order one of each. I asked the bartender to bring out the first mocktail early on, and then slot in the second mocktail part-way through the omakase at whatever point he thought that it would work best.

When he heard my request, I think he identified that I wanted a non-alcoholic pairing, so he said that he could actually make one for me on-the-fly. He offered making me four medium-sized drinks and spreading them out evenly throughout the omakase experience—two that were on the menu, along with two different ones that weren’t on the menu.

My friend wanted to try them just to see what they tasted like, but she didn’t want full mocktails of her own, so I ordered one non-alcoholic pairing to share with her. My friend also got some green tea.

After the bartender took everyone’s drink orders, the chefs were wrapping up their preparations, and the first round of nigiri was almost ready.

Shortly before serving the first piece, the chef mentioned that there was an opportunity to supplement some pieces of nigiri with extra caviar and/or shaved truffle. He mentioned the upcharge, but I thought the amount was so unreasonably high that I dismissed it as ridiculous and I guess my brain just immediately forgot it. It was somewhere in the ballpark of US$100-150 to have the add-ons for a handful of pieces of nigiri. Both my friend and I declined.

The dinner started with some hamachi, which is yellowtail.

Next came toro, or fatty tuna.

Afterwards was kinmedai, or splendid alfonsino.

The fourth piece was hotate, which is scallop.

With the first set of four pieces of nigiri finished, the bartender returned with my first mocktail. It made sense that each drink would be grouped with each batch of four pieces of nigiri, considering that there were four beverages and 16 pieces of nigiri. However, I think it would make much more sense if this came before the first piece, rather than after the fourth.

Next was shima aji, or striped jack.

Then came madai, which is red sea bream.

Afterwards, we received sawara, or Japanese Spanish mackerel.

Finally, the fourth piece of nigiri in this batch was masu, which is cherry trout.

The next mocktail was a citrus-based drink.

Nigiri number nine was albacore.

Following that was kanpachi, or greater amberjack.

Next was akami, which is the fleshy part of tuna.

Afterwards was a nice treat for me. One of my favorite types of sushi is escolar, but it’s rare to find it in restaurants because overconsumption of escolar can cause gastrointestinal issues, and a lot of restaurants don’t want to take the risk of people getting an upset stomach from ordering too much escolar and accusing them of causing food poisoning. This is prominent enough of a symptom that it is actually banned from being served in Japan.

I really like it because it is an extremely rich and buttery soft fish that isn’t quite like any other kind of fish. I happen to have the great fortune of not having any digestive issues with escolar, so I like to order it whenever I have the opportunity to do so. Thus, you can imagine how nice it was when I saw that escolar was already part of the omakase experience.

My next beverage was quite interesting, and was my favorite of the night. It had what I believe was chili oil in it, and I’m a big fan of spicy oils.

For the first piece of the set of four constituting the grand finale of the omakase, we were served torched wagyu beef nigiri.

That was followed by some bone marrow.

The chef then prepared unagi nigiri, which is eel, and topped it with some of the leftover bone marrow from the bone that was melted atop the eel with a torch.

To close out the night, the chef brought out some fresh uni, which is sea urchin.

The sea urchin was served as a small open hand roll instead of as nigiri or gunkan.

At the end of the meal, I received my fourth drink.

To close out the dinner, we were given a small cold dessert that resembled chocolate-covered ice cream.

The dessert also came with its own small cup of tea (so I had two beverages to go along with my dessert, if you also count the final mocktail of the non-alcoholic pairing).

Here are some additional photographs I took around the restaurant. These next three are from the bar area that you see immediately upon entering the restaurant, from which they conduct the canapé service.

And finally, these are photos of the Encino Place shopping mall. This was a multi-story structure with an underground parking garage and a bunch of different shops and restaurants laid out in a horseshoe. Sushi by Scratch was up one flight of stairs on the escalator from the ground floor, behind an unassuming door.

Omakase ×2	$ 370.00
Mocktail pairing	$  40.00
Green tea	$   8.00
Service charge (20%)	$  83.60
Sales tax	$  48.61
Total	$ 550.21

The table to the right shows how much I paid.

Sushi by Scratch advertises itself as a no-tipping establishment, but they add a mandatory 20% service charge to the bill, which is functionally a forced 20% gratuity.

There’s also something strange going on with the sales tax. Unless I’m misunderstanding something, the sales tax in Encino, California should be 9.75% (composed of 6.00% to the state of California, 2.50% to Los Angeles County, and 1.25% at the local level). However, the bill charged 9.70% sales tax instead. Unfortunately, this sales tax also applied to the service charge too, which usually isn’t the case for proper gratuity.

I would hope that restaurants become honest enough to just add these charges directly into the listed base price and just have no extra fees, but in Sushi by Scratch’s defense, they did at least disclose this service fee prominently on their website and on the reservation page.

Sushi by Scratch Los Angeles was very similar to Sushi by Scratch Beverly Hills—primarily in the sense that their specialization was to add very creative and unique garnish combinations to each piece of nigiri—but it still had enough differences that it had its own unique identity. I ended up liking this experience in Encino a little bit better because the selection of fish was more diverse and they included more uncommon cuts in their rotation.

With that being said, one thing that I liked much better at the Beverly Hills location was the non-alcoholic beverage pairing. It was very weird that the bartender at Encino waited for me to finish four pieces of nigiri with just water before bringing out my first drink, and then doubled me up on drinks for dessert. Also, I felt like the Beverly Hills location was far more creative with the beverages’ flavor combinations. I did appreciate that none of the drinks at Encino were excessively sweet, and the drink with droplets of chili oil was amazing, but beyond that, I think the execution could’ve been handled better.

My assessment of this Sushi by Scratch is basically the same as the one in Beverly Hills. It is quite pricey, and if you calculate the base rate for omakase plus the mandatory service charge and sales tax, and divide it by the three canapés, all 16 pieces of nigiri, and the dessert, then you end up paying somewhere around US$12 per item. With that being said, the flavor combinations that you’ll get here are unmatched. If you have been to at least a few other omakase experiences before, primarily those focused on a traditional Edomae style, and you are looking for something more distinct and memorable, then I think Sushi by Scratch is absolutely worth a visit.

Considering that I only post about this once a year, you might not have any context behind this and have no idea what I’m talking about. If that’s the case, then there are two pieces of prerequisite reading to get caught up: my restaurant reviews of the Capital Grille in Costa Mesa, California and Bello by Sandro Nardone in Newport Beach, California. If you don’t know how to read, the simple summary is that I go to a high-end restaurant together with my Twitch moderator once a year to treat him to a nice dinner on the anniversary of him becoming my mod.

This year, Phummy asked me to take him to THE RANCH Restaurant in Anaheim, California. For those who read my most recent blog post, that’s the reason I was staying at the JW Marriott, Anaheim Resort—so I could be in relatively close proximity to the restaurant (and because I enjoy going for walks around the Anaheim Convention Center, Disneyland Resort, and Anaheim GardenWalk areas).

As a side note, for those who are paying extra close attention, this blog post is a bit late for a few reasons. First, we had our dinner last Friday, but I didn’t have a chance to get around to blogging about it until today because I recently had some extremely packed weeks of work, so I’ve been spending the last several days balancing it out by playing video games (which is rare for me now), watching movies (which is even rarer), and just relaxing in general after doing only core work of critical or time-sensitive importance. Second, our actual anniversary is in the middle of Phummy’s final exam week at his university, so we decided to wait for him to wrap up so he can focus fully on excelling in his academics.

 
Upon our arrival at the restaurant, the hostess confirmed our reservation and brought us to our table. While walking us there, she asked if we were celebrating a special occasion. Phummy, of course, confidently informed her that we are celebrating our anniversary, and ended it at that. I, of course, have to clarify that we are celebrating a work anniversary and that we are not a gay couple. The hostess found that very amusing.

After being seated, a couple of other staff members asked us whether we were celebrating anything special, upon which we repeated the process of Phummy proudly declaring that we are celebrating our anniversary, and me needing to stipulate that it is a work anniversary. Everyone who spoke with us seemed to find the dynamic very amusing.

Not long afterwards, Phummy let me know that, when he booked the reservation on the restaurant’s website, he put a note in the “special request” section to make the experience as romantic as possible for us. If you haven’t noticed by now, Phummy finds great enjoyment in intentionally making the “anniversary” term confusing or misleading for people in hopes that they think we are a gay couple.

After speaking with us, it seemed like all the staff members were very on board with joining Phummy in trolling me and really emphasizing just the “anniversary” part of “work anniversary.” What I think happened was that the hostess and staff saw Phummy’s special request, but when we walked in, we didn’t look anything like a romantic couple, so they held back under the belief that there had been some kind of error or misunderstanding. However, after confirming directly with us about our “relationship,” it seemed like every staff member enthusiastically committed to Phummy’s joke.

 
While we were deciding what to eat, we were brought out some complimentary bread. There were seven orbs of five different kinds of bread arranged in a flower shape. This is the first restaurant that I’ve ever seen do something like this, and I appreciated their creativity. The bread quality was also pretty good, though I didn’t have that much of it because I didn’t want to fill up my stomach too much with carbs.

I accidentally came into this dinner not hungry because there was a bit of a mix-up. Phummy originally told me that the dinner was on Saturday the 23rd, but then later said that apparently the reservation actually went through for Friday the 22nd instead. I confirmed the schedule change and updated it in my calendar, but I guess I forgot to update it in my brain. I accidentally ate some free dinner at my hotel’s restaurant on Friday with my elite status vouchers, and only after finishing two entrées did I remember that I was supposed to meet up with Phummy. Thus, my meal at THE RANCH was actually my second dinner of the day.

Our waiter asked if we wanted to order any drinks. I told him that I don’t drink alcohol, but gestured over to Phummy to see if he wanted anything. I then found out / remembered that Phummy is not yet of legal alcohol drinking age in the United States. So instead, we both ordered mocktails.

I ordered a hibiscus and jalapeño mocktail. It was quite strong and intense, and it gave a nice kick every sip.

While delivering our drinks, the waiter asked what kind of work anniversary we were celebrating, i.e., what we do for our jobs. This is a bit of a complex question, considering that my main job is being the Director of Corporate Operations at Tempo, and my secondary job is being a business consultant, and Phummy doesn’t work together with me in either of those. I told our waiter that, and then further elaborated that Phummy is a Twitch moderator, which in normal people terms, is functionally similar to being a personal digital media assistant. Our waiter was very interested in this, so he stood at our table for a few minutes while I fairly thoroughly explained everything.

Then I looked over at Phummy. His drink was already empty.

The waiter asked Phummy if he wanted another one, to which he confirmed.

For our appetizer, we got a Robbins Island Tasmanian Wagyu Beef carpaccio with white alba clamshell mushrooms, black truffle, wild arugula, and pecorino romano.

This was good, but the beef was sliced comically thin. And yes, I understand that the entire point of carpaccio is to cut the fish or meat into thin slices, but this beef carpaccio was so thin that it basically just ripped apart from its own weight when I tried to pick it up.

The greens supplemented the meat flavor very well. I took some of the vegetables and placed them on top of the carpaccio, then rolled it up as best I could; this made for some satisfying and well-rounded bites.

While we were having our appetizer, the waiter came back with Phummy’s second drink. I don’t quite remember exactly what all the components of the drink were, but as you can probably tell, it was a citrus-based mocktail.

The main menu had a lot of nice beef options, but was fairly limited in seafood. I’m still trying to avoid red meat where possible in order to reduce saturated fat consumption, lower cholesterol, and maintain heart health (and because I just like seafood better anyway). Thus, I was tentatively deciding on getting pan-seared halibut. However, there was also a special farm menu that day with a few additional options.

I ended up ordering pistachio-crusted Colorado lamb chops with whole grain mustard spätzle, green garbanzo beans, red spring onions, ramp chimichurri, and lamb jus as my main entrée. Yes, lamb is still red meat, but lamb is not as common as beef, poultry, or fish in the United States, so when there is a high-quality lamb dish at a restaurant, I will usually get it.

This lamb was great, but interestingly, I actually enjoyed the spätzle as the most notable part of the dish. The texture and doneness level of the pasta was perfect, both when eating it on its own as well as when combining it with a bite of lamb.

For my side, I got some grilled asparagus.

Separate from both the main menu and the side farm menu were a few special unlisted dishes, one of which was a filet mignon. Phummy is a fan of filet mignon, so that’s the dish he ordered; it came topped with a bone marrow compound butter sauce crust as a supplement, as well as with an included side of potato fingerlings.

For his side, he got lobster mac and cheese, composed of house-made pasta and Vermont white cheddar.

I ended up not being able to finish my lamb chops and asparagus, so I asked for it to be put in a to-go container. I technically could’ve finished it if I really pushed myself, but I wanted to still leave a little bit of room for dessert.

Phummy and I each ordered one dessert, but when the waiter came back, he had three plates. One of them was a complimentary celebratory dessert on the house—a Tahitian vanilla bean crème brûlée with seasonal madeleines. They wrote “Happy Anniversary” on the plate with chocolate from a piping bag.

My dessert was a hazelnut crunch bar with praline crunch, chocolate crémeux, caramelized hazelnuts, Valrhona Caramélia chocolate mousse, caramel sauce, and vanilla ice cream.

Phummy opted for the Milky Way, made with República del Cacao chocolate, malted nougat, and salted caramel ice cream.

While he was consuming it, we had an interesting discussion about the trademark implications of naming their dessert the Milky Way, and whether it would constitute infringement under the standards of likelihood of confusion. My conclusion was that, yes, the fact that they named this the Milky Way would indeed likely fall under infringement territory.

After we finished all three desserts, the waiter brought out our check. To further commit to the anniversary joke, he wrote “Happy Anniversary!” at the top of our receipt.

Here is a photograph of the main dining area of the restaurant.

While stopping by the restroom, I noticed that the door to a vacant private dining area was left open. I peeked inside and snapped a photograph.

On our way out, the hostess gave us one final departing “happy anniversary!”

This is what the restaurant looks like from the outside. The left door leads to the restaurant, while the right door leads to the saloon.

Thinking back, I probably should’ve checked out what the saloon looks like while I was there, even if it was just for a few minutes. The entryway was delineated with stanchions though, so I guess it is possible that they were having a special event there and we might not have even been allowed in as non-ticketed guests.

Wagyu beef carpaccio	$  25.00
Colorado lamb chops	$  74.00
Filet mignon	$  74.00
Bone marrow crust	$  15.00
Asparagus	$  18.00
Lobster mac ‘n’ cheese	$  30.00
Hazelnut crunch bar	$  17.00
Milky Way	$  17.00
Vanilla crème brûlée	$   0.00
Mocktail ×3	$  36.00
Bottled water ×4	$  40.00
Sales tax (7.75%)	$  26.82
Gratuity	$  90.00
Total	$ 462.82

The table to the right shows how much I paid.

The restaurant offers valet parking, but they also had a free self parking option in an adjacent lot right on the opposite side of a nearby fence, easily within walking distance.

I am about 98% sure that both Phummy and I drank regular house filtered water and not bottled water. However, I was charged for four bottles of water at US$10.00 each. Usually, the way to know for sure that you are getting paid, premium water is that they will bring the glass bottles directly to you and leave them on your table, and they definitely did not do that for us. Thus, I’m pretty sure that I ended up inadvertently paying for a different table’s luxury water supply. Having an excess US$40.00 on your bill isn’t really the best feeling, but I’m over it at this point; I had a chance to audit the check before remitting payment, so I bear a lot of the fault for not catching it before handing over my credit card.

If you’ve read my previous restaurant reviews, you may have picked up on the fact that I am very much against the United States’ tipping culture, and I will usually only add on around 15% in gratuity to my bill. However, I still assess this on a case-by-case basis, and when I notice that the staff is going noticeably beyond what I think is the standard of service, I am happy to tip more generously. Every single staff member we encountered at THE RANCH was stellar, and I could tell that they genuinely wanted to give Phummy a fun, memorable experience. Thus, my ~26% gratuity isn’t me being a hypocrite; I just thought they deserved it in this instance. Also, technically, considering that I paid an extra US$40.00 for water that I’m pretty sure we did not get, if you recalculate that as if it was extra gratuity, then I guess tipping US$130.00 on a new US$306.00 subtotal is… over 42%.

Overall, I thought the food was great, but I am undecided on the value for the cost. For comparison, this is right around the price point of last year’s Chef’s Table, and I thought the experience with Chef Frankie was a league or two above THE RANCH with regards to ingredient quality, dish preparation, and portion size. The service was top-tier at both locations, but was just different; Bello by Sandro Nardone focused on chef-to-diner personalization, while THE RANCH had a broadly supportive and attentive staff.

If you’re interested in dining at THE RANCH but are concerned about the price point, I think one thing to keep in mind is that you can be a lot smarter about assembling a good meal without spending as much as I did. I think our waiter noticed that I didn’t really mind what the price was of anything, so he did a great job upselling us by describing add-ons like drinks and supplements in a very appetizing way, and reminding us about side dishes. If you’re not getting what is basically the most expensive dish in every single category, then I imagine your bill will be much more manageable than this.

Phummy is already thinking ahead to next year’s anniversary dinner and figuring out what kinds of unique and special things we can do for it. I guess I have to wait patiently for another eleven and a half more months to figure out how he plans on trolling me next…

When I started my journey, I picked one hotel brand and stuck with it to accrue loyalty status and get perks. I ended up selecting Marriott due to their broad portfolio of different hotels under their brand and the frequency with which they have hotels in smaller, out-of-the-way cities and towns. Usually, earning the highest tier of status is challenging for most people, but if you’re basically treating Marriott like your landlord like I did, it actually comes quite easily. I reached Ambassador Elite within the first year and have maintained it since then, apart from the one year when I rented a condo in the middle of my multi-year journey.

When people found out that I was living in hotel rooms, they wanted me to mix in hotel reviews among the blog posts I would publish about the various tourist activities I was doing during my travels. I would post photos of hotel rooms once in a while in round-up/miscellaneous photo dump blog posts, but otherwise, I never really did full reviews because I didn’t think they would be interesting. Keep in mind that I was treating these hotel rooms as my home, so I wanted something simple, straightforward, and affordable; as a result, most of my hotel stays were in Fairfield Inns, SpringHill Suites, Residence Inns, and Courtyards—not exactly the most flashy and exciting hotels.

However, since then, I’ve been more open to being more adventurous and staying in more interesting hotels. I still don’t really do hotel reviews though, because I feel like a proper review should be very thorough; I often don’t spend enough time experiencing and analyzing all the amenities and restaurants the hotel has to offer to be able to write a great review.

With that being said, I recently had such a goofy experience that I decided to do my very first hotel review.

One of the perks of being Ambassador Elite is that you can book regular guest rooms and get complimentary upgrades, availability permitting. I almost always book the most basic room, and I almost always get upgraded to at least a slightly larger room or a room on the highest floor with the best view. Once in a while, I will get upgraded to a suite and have a separate living room and bedroom. My best upgrade so far was at MGM’s Aria Resort and Casino, where I booked the cheapest room but ended up getting a complimentary upgrade to the Aria Sky Suites (MGM has a partnership with Marriott, so many of my perks are transferrable).

Well, it was my best upgrade… until now. I am in Southern California for a short trip for a very “special” dinner, which I will blog about soon. The dinner is going to be in Anaheim, California, so I decided to stay at the JW Marriott, Anaheim Resort while in town.

Like usual, I booked the cheapest room available. Upon arrival, I parked in a neighboring parking garage for the Anaheim GardenWalk because I didn’t want to use the hotel’s mandatory valet service. I checked in, and the customer service representative confirmed that I had a room with one king bed. After she explained all the amenities of the hotel, she sent me on my way to the elevator.

After getting off the elevator, I followed the signs to my room number, 1118. When I found it, I saw that the room had double doors. I was a bit confused at first, but I’d been in enough hotels already to know what had happened. I got upgraded to the Presidential Suite.

The customer service representative technically wasn’t lying when she said the room had one king bed. It’s just that she conveniently left out the fact that the room also had quite a lot more to it than just the bedroom.

The bathroom had two sinks, a standing shower, a bathtub, and a separate area with an additional door and privacy glass for the toilet.

Just the living room itself was about the size of a regular hotel room.

On the opposite side of the living room was an entire dining room.

Around the corner from the dining room was a dedicated den.

The den had a desk in addition to a small seating area.

This is the bar and kitchen area. You can’t tell because of the wall, but there is a full-sized refrigerator tucked in around the corner.

The room literally even had a foyer. From the foyer was a dedicated coat closet, as well as a powder room (i.e., a second bathroom).

I headed out to the wrap-around corner balcony to check out the view.

When I got to the west side of the balcony, I saw another balcony in the distance and thought “nice, those people also have a balcony.” Then I realized that that is also my balcony, accessible from the bedroom.

I was on this trip alone, by the way. I’m someone who is generally fine with having a small hotel room, as long as it’s clean and doesn’t smell weird. So, as you’d probably expect, my reaction when walking through the Presidential Suite and taking photographs was a combination of “this is excessive” and “what in the world am I going to do with all this space.”

This is what the first floor entryway looks like, near the valet area. Because I didn’t valet my truck, I just walked in through this area and then took the escalator up to the second floor to the hotel lobby on the second floor.

This is the common area on the second floor near the check-in desk.

This is the executive lounge, accessible by anyone Platinum and above in Marriott’s loyalty program. They serve snacks and small plates throughout the day, so I stopped by here a handful of times during my stay.

Here is a small sampling of some of the hors d’oeuvres they served during the evening—miniature beef wellingtons, shrimp egg rolls, artichoke dip, salad, edamame, deep-fried shrimp, and beef empanadas. As you can probably tell from the second photograph, I really like chili sauce.

This JW Marriott had a JW Gardens on the second floor, right outside the check-in area. It obviously wasn’t anywhere near as grand or majestic as the one in JW Marriott Hotel Hanoi, but it was still nice to have a serene walk through some flowers.

One section of the JW Gardens was set up for a private event.

Near one of the entrances to the JW Gardens, there was a sign that explained more about the flowers, plants, and animals found on their property.

On the far edge of the gardens, there was a small clearing between some trees through which I was able to see the Anaheim GardenWalk. At the time that I peeked over, there was a very long line of people, but I couldn’t quite figure out what they were waiting for.

For dinner on the first night of my stay, I decided to dine at one of the on-site restaurants, Tocca Ferro Italian Chophouse. My decision was vetoed and overridden by the fact that apparently Tocca Ferro was closed for renovations.

Instead, I decided to pivot to Citriculture, which is their hybrid lobby and pool bar. I headed over to the general area, but it seemed like there were no staff members on duty. I figured that they were understaffed and the only person had walked away to take a bathroom break or something, so I sat down and browsed through the menu. After deciding what I wanted to eat, I scrolled through the news on my phone for several minutes until I noticed someone who looked vaguely like a staff member re-emerge from the shadows.

I stood up and walked over in his general direction. He looked at me, and then handed me someone’s check. After I told him that I wanted to place an order, he rerouted the check to the proper person and then asked me to hold on for a bit. I stood there like an NPC for a few minutes while I watched this guy scramble all over the place and wrangle the overwhelming two other tasks he had to do.

He eventually got to me and asked what I wanted to order. I told him I wanted the Monarch Burger. He asked me how I would like it cooked, so I asked him what is the rarest I can get it. He replied that I can get it rare.

Now, for those who are not familiar with doneness levels in burgers, you usually want your burgers cooked well-done because there can be a lot of bacteria transfer during the grinding process. There are a few exceptions to this, such as if you’re having a steak burger served as a whole cut of beef, or if the outside is seared to high temperatures first and then diced using clean cutting tools, or if it is prepared sous vide and held to a rare doneness level for about two hours. However, most fast food restaurants or bars just put a ground beef patty on a grill and are not going to go through that extra hassle to properly prepare a rare burger.

When he said I could get my burger rare, I became curious so I asked a few questions. I asked him if it was a steak burger, to which he hesitatingly said yes. I realized he didn’t know what that meant, so I clarified whether the burger was made with a single chunk of meat or with ground beef, and he confirmed that it’s a regular ground beef patty. I asked him how they cook it, and he said that they “cook it regular.” After concluding that this man has no idea what words are coming out of his own mouth, I told him that I would like my burger medium-well.

He said “ok,” then just went silent and went about the rest of his day. I got his attention again and asked him if I was going to be seated somewhere in particular or if I can just grab a seat anywhere at the bar; he replied to my “this or that” question with a very insightful “no.” I also mentioned that I wanted to apply my food and beverage credits to the meal, upon which he stared at me as if I was the first person in the history of the hotel to ever try and use a food and beverage credit. I clarified that I would like to use both the food and beverage credit that comes with the resort fee, in addition to the extra one I get from my elite status welcome gift. He eventually figured it out and printed out a receipt for me to sign.

After almost 20 minutes, my burger finally came out. Fortunately, it was a different person this time, and it seems like this was actually the real waitress who was supposed to be managing Citriculture. She realized that I wasn’t even given a glass of water, so she made up for the previous guy’s shortcomings, got me some water, and made sure I had all the sauces and utensils I needed to enjoy my meal.

According to the menu, the Monarch Burger has a patty composed of a short rib and chuck blend. In the burger is Muenster cheese, lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, shaved red onions, crispy prosciutto, white truffle and citrus aioli, and spicy nectar glaze in between a sesame brioche bun. On the side were some thick-cut fries. The vegetables were very refreshing, and overall, I enjoyed the burger.

For dinner on the second day of my stay, I went to the Parkestry Rooftop Bar and Lounge. This requires taking a special elevator found through the JW Gardens, but the door to that elevator was locked. Considering that the Italian restaurant was still closed and I didn’t want to go back to Citriculture in fear of running into the incompetent male server again, I went to the front desk to inquire about the rooftop bar. After going back and forth a few times, they informed me that the door to the elevator was indeed not supposed to be locked. Someone eventually went around through the back and opened it for me, so I was able to make my way up to the top of the building.

I had already eaten some more hors d’oeuvres that day in the lounge, so I kept my Parkestry meal simple with some buffalo chicken wings, carrots, and celery—enough to use my food and beverage credit, but not overeat.

The chicken wings tasted like the highest-tier frozen chicken wings that you’d find at a grocery store, prepared properly in the oven. The buffalo sauce was delicious and added a nice depth to the chicken wings that made them taste more notable and less generic. The vegetables were, once again, very refreshing.

With all the free food I was getting, I of course had to stop by the gym for some exercise. There were fewer weight machines than I had hoped, but it still had enough to cover all the fundamentals.

There was a plate of zen sand in the corner of the gym, along with a rake so you could draw your own zenful designs.

This is what the elevator lobby looked like on the mezzanine floor, which is the floor with the gym.

Remember the area in the JW Gardens from earlier that was set up for a private event? I was fortunate enough that I was able to participate in it too… but from my balcony. They had some fun music playing from down there, so I brought my laptop out onto the balcony and got some work done while enjoying the music.

Here is a view from one of my balconies during the night. The rows of palm trees were all individually illuminated, which made for a nice sight.

Disneyland was also visible in the distance from the balcony attached to the bedroom. Unfortunately, apparently it is still considered “off-season,” so they limit the fireworks shows to only certain days of the week—days that did not overlap with my stay at the hotel.

So, my thoughts on the hotel? You might be surprised to hear my final thoughts, considering that they literally gave me a free upgrade to a suite that usually goes for over a thousand dollars a night (though I guess this might also be a clear indication that I am excruciatingly difficult to sway with free gifts and perks).

I thought the hotel was… fine.

Just because a room is bigger doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. To be clear, the room itself was absolutely fantastic, and I’m sure someone traveling with a large group of people would’ve loved it, but for me personally, I probably would’ve enjoyed a smaller room of equal design and cleanliness just as much as the Presidential Suite. Of course, I appreciated the upgrade so I could have this very funny experience, but it wasn’t a deciding factor in my opinion of the hotel.

Overall, the JW Marriott, Anaheim Resort was absolutely dwarfed in every possible metric when compared to JW Marriott hotels in Asia. The Asian JW Marriotts I’ve stayed at sat at the absolute top tier of service and luxury that I’ve experienced (and, to some extent, too top-tier, because I had pinnacle levels of service swarming around me at the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong at all times, even during periods when I preferred to just be left alone). However, the JW Marriott, Anaheim Resort just felt like a more upscale version of a regular Marriott of the non-JW variant.

With that being said, to put things into perspective, I’ve also been to worse JW Marriotts. For example, the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE just felt like a regular Marriott without the upscaledness, and I found it to be undeserving of the JW branding. Thus, I think my assessment of the JW Marriott, Anaheim Resort being “fine” is actually quite reasonable.

So, would I go back to the JW Marriott, Anaheim Resort? It depends. I see myself returning under two circumstances: either during very off-season periods where room rates are as low as they can get and I’m in the mood to stick around the property to take full advantage of all the amenities, or if there is a convention going on and the hotels closer to the Anaheim Convention Center are comparatively more expensive so I end up booking at the JW and making the extra walk to whatever event I’m attending.

When possible, I usually like to go to these late at night when there aren’t as many people so that I can get better photos and am not being as disruptive to others around me while they wait for me to stand there for long periods of time taking multiple shots at slightly different trajectories so I can figure out which angle looks the best. As a secondary reason, I have quite a high track record of people coming up to me and asking me to take group pictures for them. It makes sense, considering that I am there with a dedicated point-and-shoot camera, so they probably assume that I have a statistically higher chance of being more qualified to take good photos for them. To be clear, I don’t mind helping out Las Vegas tourists with their photos, and I always happily accept all requests; with that being said, it still definitely slows me down quite a bit.

However, this is the new spring installation, and I felt like taking spring photos in the dark would be too depressing. The high temperatures in the Las Vegas Valley are already reaching the upper 90s°F, and we’re even about to hit summer soon. To memorialize the great weather (if by great you mean scorching), I decided to tank the inefficiencies and head out there during the daytime.

As with all floral arrangements, a big part of what makes this so great is the fragrant aroma of the flowers, which I obviously cannot share with you through this blog post. If you’re in the Las Vegas area and have some free time, I always recommend checking out the Bellagio Conservatory due to how quick and low-commitment it is, and how surreal it always feels in contrast with the Las Vegas desert.

The Conservatory will be entering its dark dates starting June 7, so you still have about three weeks left to check this one out before it gets swapped with the summer display.

Here is a bonus spring floral arrangement set up in front of Harvest, a restaurant deeper into the resort near the pool area.

If you liked these photographs and want to see more from previous installations, I also have these past blog posts (in reverse chronological order): “Lunar New Year 2026: Year of the Horse,” “All Aboard for Holiday Bells and Whistles,” “Glam Menagerie: Surrealist Summer,” “The Birds and the B’s,” and “Lunar New Year 2025: Year of the Snake.”]]> https://parkzer.com/2026/05/10/misc-photo-dump-royal-caribbeans-navigator-san-pedro-vallarta/ Mon, 11 May 2026 06:05:25 +0000 https://parkzer.com/?p=14403 In case you missed it from the past three blog posts, I recently wrapped up a one-week cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas from the World Cruise Center at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California. This was the second ever cruise I’ve taken, with the first one also being with Royal Caribbean, but on their Quantum of the Seas ship instead. My cruise this time around had stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán, and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.

I already shared my thoughts about my second Chef’s Table experience, the all-access behind-the-scenes tour of the ship, and the food I ate at each of the specialty restaurants with my unlimited dining package. I still have a bunch of miscellaneous pictures I took around the ship that I haven’t shared yet, so here is my concluding photo dump with everything else I haven’t covered.

To address my hatred of standing in line, I once again purchased The Key add-on, which is basically like a paid VIP service for certain aspects of the cruise. … The actual reason I get it is because it comes bundled with onboard Internet access, which is mandatory for me so I can continue working while cruising. With that being said, I do actually hate standing in line though, so the priority access from The Key made my boarding process much easier.

After getting through security, I joined a line with everyone else to head onto the ramp to get on the ship. I think this process would’ve been quicker if I had shown up earlier at the beginning of my priority boarding period, but because I was still waking up pretty late at that time, I didn’t want to make myself suffer through any unnecessary sleep deprivation.

I enjoy seeing the logistics of how things work. I think it is quite interesting to think about how complex and full my life is, and then realize that everyone else also has a life with just as much time as I do, and then further realize that there are hundreds of those people dedicating all their working hours into making large-scale coordinated things happen, such as a cruise.

With that in mind, I like getting a peek at the behind-the-scenes of how things are organized. This may seem very mundane, but I saw a long row of carts with checked luggage waiting to be loaded onto the ship, so I snapped a photo.

After boarding the ship, I had my welcome lunch as part of The Key. Not long after I finished eating, staterooms opened up, so I headed up to the sixth floor to drop off my bags. The Key has a system where you can leave your bags at a designated drop-off point immediately upon boarding and the staff will deliver them to your stateroom door for you if you’d like. I personally don’t use that service because it’s not that much of a hassle to bring a carry-on-sized luggage around with me for a little bit, and I’d much rather not take the risk of it getting lost.

For this cruise, I decided to get an interior room with a promenade view. During my previous cruise, I had a balcony room; it was nice, but I realized that the value that you get with the balcony relative to the upcharge is debatable.

I think if you’re cruising with family and want to spend some quiet, private time together with them, then a balcony room might make sense. However, I’m cruising solo and have no problem going out in public spaces on my own just to people-watch, so I didn’t actually really spend that much time in my stateroom (and if I did, I was working at my desk and was focused enough on my work to not care about the balcony). On top of that, if I ever actually wanted to go look at the ocean, there were plenty of public places at which I could do that.

After leaving my carry-on luggage and backpack in my stateroom, I headed back out to go for a walk and check out what Navigator of the Seas has to offer.

The main difference I noticed compared to Quantum of the Seas is that Navigator is a bit more “portioned out.” On Quantum, I felt like I could start at any point on the ship and always make it to the opposite side of that deck just by walking on a path that cuts through the entire length of the ship. However, on Navigator, things were organized in “sections,” and if you are in one isolated section, you have to do a bit more navigating before you can make it to a different section.

After everyone embarked on the ship, the sail away party started and we departed San Pedro.

On the first night of the cruise, I thoroughly walked around the entire ship to figure out where everything was and scout out some nice areas where I could work while people-watching. After returning to my stateroom and getting some work done while looking down on the promenade from my interior window, I headed over to the Royal Theater in time for the first show of the cruise.

After the show, I headed over to the Star Lounge to listen to a live performance by the band Euphoria. There was a dance floor in front of the stage, so for some of the more fun songs, people went up there to dance to the music.

Royal Caribbean’s mobile app has a convenient schedule of activities going on at all times, and especially on sailing days, that list is packed. During one of the sailing days, the art shop ran an art auction.

This was probably the stupidest art auction I have ever seen in my entire life. A staff member would bring out a piece of art to the stage, then the auctioneer would say something like “this art piece is worth over a hundred thousand dollars, but we are starting bidding today at only $70,000!” He would then count down, and obviously not a single rational soul on a cruise ship would spend tens of thousands of dollars on an impulse purchase of a random painting, so nobody would make an offer. The auctioneer would request applause anyway, and then they would swap the art piece and repeat the process.

I did not see a single art piece sold at this auction. I left early so I could eat lunch instead.

After the auction was over, they brought the art pieces back down to the designated art gallery area. While walking around and taking a look at a later time, I saw this cat sculpture. It looks nice, but knowing their pricing system, it’s probably worth $300,000, but they will give you a great deal and sell it to you for $299,999.

And of course, you shouldn’t touch it for your safety, i.e., so you won’t have to take out a second mortgage on your house to pay for the damages if you break it.

Here’s another shot of the Royal Theater for a different show. This one was very strange. At first, these two guys started as comedians and told about half an hour of jokes. … Then they randomly pulled out some bolas and swung them around and did some kind of hybrid dance and martial arts performance. It was very unexpected.

Quantum had a long walking track that stretched across the entire upper deck, but the one on Navigator felt like it was only about half the length, and it was curvy and wound around cabanas and was overall just more difficult to use. Thus, I spent a decent amount of time in the fitness center, not only to use the treadmill to get my steps in, but also to do some resistance training as well.

The gym had a back door that led to somewhat of a secret area with a row of pool lounging chairs. It was a nice place to get a peaceful view of the ocean after my workout. In the distance, you can see Cabo San Lucas; I didn’t disembark the ship because Cabo has tendering service only (i.e., they put you on a smaller ship and bring you back and forth to shore), and I get severe seasickness on small ships, so I didn’t want to take the risk.

The following day’s show at the Royal Theater was “Ballroom Fever.” Apparently I decided to take a picture of the empty stage upon my early arrival, but didn’t actually take any pictures of the show.

Here are some photos of our day docked at Mazatlán.

One of my favorite spots to work was in the Cosmopolitan Lounge on one of the upper-most decks of the ship; it had floor-to-ceiling windows that showed a great view of the pool deck and ocean.

Here are some photos of sail away from Mazatlán.

I returned to the Cosmopolitan Lounge the next day to work while people-watching again.

After wrapping up most of the work I needed to do for the day, I dropped my laptop off in my stateroom and headed out to the pool deck to watch sail away from the next port, Puerto Vallarta.

Here is the mini-golf course on the ship. I managed to get a picture of it empty because it was extremely windy and slightly drizzling this day, so it wasn’t practical for anyone to play mini-golf.

The night of sailing away from our final port, there was a performance by Jennifer Singer.

And finally, the night after that, which was an all-day sailing day, the show in the Royal Theater was “Showgirl! Past. Present. Future.”

So there are the rest of my miscellaneous photos to fill in the gaps between the other three cruise blog posts I already published.

I’d say that I had a comparable level of enjoyment on this cruise compared to my first one on Quantum. There were a lot of aspects about Navigator that were either better or worse than Quantum, but overall, I think it averaged out. One thing that did help a lot was the fact that I wasn’t as much of a newbie for this cruise as I was on Quantum, so I feel like I was able to take advantage of more of what the cruise had to offer because I knew what I was doing better.

If I find another absolutely insanely incredible bargain deal on Navigator or Quantum for one of these same sailings, then I am willing to do a repeat of one of these itineraries. However, it seems like I already experienced both ships and both longer sailings that depart from San Pedro. Thus, for my next cruise, I will most likely be looking at other ports (like ones in Florida, Texas, or Washington) so I can experience both a new ship and a new set of destinations.

Chef’s Table is an upgraded experience that comes with an additional US$118.00 supplement. Because I purchased the unlimited premium dining package add-on prior to sailing, my upcharge was lowered to $59.00 (consisting of a $50.00 base price and a $9.00 mandatory 18% gratuity). The extra fee isn’t cheap, especially considering that all your basic meals are already included in your standard fare, but if you compare the quality of the food and service to other fine dining establishments on land, it’s actually not bad.

Chef’s tasting menus like this are usually rotated by season. Because my previous cruise was during the winter and it’s spring now, I was looking forward to seeing how they changed up the menu. Unfortunately, the course list was exactly the same as it was on my previous cruise, which was a bit disappointing. Upon the conclusion of my meal, I did some research about how frequently they change up the menu, only to discover that… they don’t. Apparently this menu is highly standardized and remains the same, year-round and fleet-wide.

I feel like this is a huge missed opportunity to hook the foodies into spending more money every time they’re on a Royal Caribbean cruise. Yes, having delicious, high-quality food is probably the most important facet of attracting customers, but if they want to monetize food enthusiasts as repeat customers, I feel like adding in at least some kind of novelty value every season would be a big plus.

So, if you already read my blog post about my previous Chef’s Table experience, then this one will probably feel like déjà vu. Regardless, I still decided to do a full post about it again because there are still some thoughts I had throughout this meal about the limited differences it did end up having compared to the one I experienced on Quantum.

I don’t drink alcohol, so in lieu of the wine pairing, I requested a non-alcoholic pairing instead. On Quantum, they had a designated non-alcoholic pairing prepared, and when I brought it up, they even asked if anyone else at the table wanted to pass on the wine and make a substitution too.

However, this time on Navigator, it felt like the non-alcoholic pairing was an afterthought. The waiter’s facial expression made it look like he was incredibly confused that I didn’t drink alcohol, and at one point during the dinner, he even asked me “would you like another one?” as if I was supposed to be ordering the mocktails myself rather than there being a pairing.

On Quantum, the waiter immediately took away my wine glasses, but on Navigator, I had six empty, unused wine glasses sitting in front of me for over half the meal, and the waiter only thought to remove them after the first three of six courses were already done. Additionally, because this was a circular table, it felt a lot more cramped. The rectangular table that was used on Quantum had more efficient usage of space because there was very little unused space on the table, but on a circular table, the entire center of the table is unreachable, so you end up having all the wine glasses really close to each other and your eating area is just basically a pie slice.

The meal started with some bread.

At this point, I noticed that there were 13 people at the table—six couples, plus me solo. I started having a sneaking suspicion that the capacity of the table was supposed to be 12, but because I was a solo diner, they squeezed in another couple so that they didn’t end up with 11 in this session and “miss out” on a spot if there is no other solo diner who signs up. That would give a partial explanation of why we all felt so cramped and had so little space.

The reason I found this out? They ran out of bread. They prepared 12 portions of bread, even though there were 13 people. I got my own blossom of bread, but the man sitting next to me didn’t get one and had to share one with his wife. He ultimately got his portion… after course number four.

After an unusually long wait, we were served the first course, scallop carpaccio with yuzu vinaigrette and crispy quinoa. This was very consistent with the previous scallop carpaccio I had on Quantum; it was cut extremely thin, so I rolled them up into tubes with the quinoa and some vegetables inside so that it had more substance per chew.

After finishing my dish, I looked up and noticed that the woman across the table from me hadn’t received one. I wondered if this was another case of the kitchen only making 12 instead of 13, but after someone else also noticed and asked her about it, she said that she had an allergy and requested a substitution. Considering how long we had to wait to get our first course, I figured that it would be plenty of time to prepare her substitute dish as well and serve everyone at once. A while after everyone at the table finished their scallop, the woman finally got her alternative dish.

I also finally received my “first” drink of the non-alcoholic beverage pairing. I say that this is the “first” because the actual first one I got was supposed to be in substitution for the welcome champagne. This one was the first drink of the actual meal.

For the second course, we received smoked tomato soup with garlic focaccia croutons. As you can see from the photograph, it was just focaccia and not croutons.

The smoked tomato soup was served plain at first, and then the chef came out to add the cream and basil sauces into the soup.

I remember from Quantum that I really enjoyed the earthiness and smoky flavor of this soup, and this is actually one of the dishes that I thought Navigator did even better. The flavor was much more intense here, almost as if the Quantum version of soup was diluted. I still had some of the bread left from before, so when I ran out of focaccia, I dipped the bread into the soup to clean my bowl.

The third course was Maine lobster salad with hearts of palm, pineapple, cilantro, and vanilla dressing.

I liked the Quantum version of this a little bit better because the Quantum’s lobster was prepared in a more pure and simple way, while this one had a lot of sauce, some of which was already soaked into the vegetables. With that being said, liking the more plain version of lobster is just a personal preference (mostly because I just really like the flavor of lobster itself); everything about this dish was delicious, including the sauce.

My next mocktail was a pineapple and coconut drink. It looks like a fruit slushie and I think it visually looks extremely sweet, but in reality, it was actually quite moderate in sweetness. That meant that it was easier to discern the flavors of the fruits themselves, which I thought made the overall flavor profile of the drink much better.

Our fourth course was roasted branzino with grilled zucchini, peppers, lemon confit, and pesto.

This was another dish that was very consistent between Quantum and Navigator. The fish was cooked very well, and the vegetables and citrus complemented it well. I noticed that the sauce here was a bit stronger than the one served on Quantum, but that was fine, as a majority of it was pooled in the moat of the plate and diners could personally decide how much to use.

A significantly noticeable difference between the dining experience on Quantum and Navigator was the skill of the sommelier. On Quantum, it was easy to tell that the sommelier was experienced and confident in the way that he explained and served the wine, but on Navigator, the sommelier made some questionable choices that even I, as someone who never drinks alcohol, found to be quite obviously unusual.

I don’t know if this was just him being nervous, but he was very fidgety with the wine bottles. I believe a reasonable expectation you can have of your sommelier presenting the wine is to hold it steady with a folded liteau so that there is minimal body heat transfer, and so the diners can still see the label on the bottle. The sommelier for our dinner seemed to really like touching the bottle with his bare hands, and not just touch it, but really get in there and massage it like he was loosening some cramps.

For one of the wines—specifically, the Leviathan Red Blend California—the sommelier poured it into a decanter first. Remember the pineapple drink I had earlier? It had a little too much in the glass, so some of it overflowed and ended up forming a puddle on the table. Do you know where the sommelier decided to place the decanter on the table so that people could look at it (after cradling it and massaging it too, for a bit)? Directly on top of the puddle. A blind man literally had a statistically higher chance to place the decanter on a dry spot of the tablecloth than this sommelier.

Here is a picture of the sommelier serving the wine to my next-seat neighbor. Hmm, I wonder why he still has so much bread left. Oh wait…

The fifth course of the evening was filet mignon.

Prior to serving it, our waiter (who, if it wasn’t clear, is the same person as our sommelier) went around the table collecting doneness level preferences. Most people ordered their steak medium rare, while the other half ranged from medium to medium well. During this process, he told an elaborate story about how it is worth trying steak cooked medium rare, even if you usually like it more cooked, and he shared some anecdotes about how he is slowly convincing his wife to eat steak cooked closer and closer to medium rare.

He had started this quest by asking the person next to me, so by the time he had gone all around the table (and also finished telling his story), I was last in line to give my order. I asked for my filet mignon to be cooked rare. He asked “oh, so you want it still mooing?” This is obviously a joke, but with this guy, I literally could not tell. Just in case there was a miscommunication, I clarified, “no, I’d just like it regular rare, not blue rare” (because blue rare is often the doneness level at which you get “your steak is still alive” comments). The waiter then repeated his joke, asking, “yes, so you want it still mooing?” to which I replied “yes, that would be great.”

Fortunately, the steak came out properly rare, and it was delicious.

The filet mignon was served with a side of potato purée, asparagus, carrots, and baby tomatoes. The chef also came around and added some bordelaise sauce to the moat; I ended up barely using any sauce because the flavor of the steak and vegetables was so great on its own.

On Quantum, the filet mignon had a nice quirk where it was served with extra crispy potato chips pressed into the potato purée. I enjoyed that the Navigator version also came with a few potato chips on the side as well. The portion was small enough that it added a nice little diversity of flavor and texture without being considered too significant a component of the overall dish.

For our final beverage of the night, we got espressos—a regular salted caramel espresso for me, and an espresso martini for everyone else.

By this point, because the service had been so excruciatingly slow, we were about to hit the end of hour 4 of our dinner and it was almost 9 PM (we started at 5 PM). Because it was so late, most people didn’t dare take more than a sip or two of their espresso martinis out of concern that the caffeine would keep them up all night. Luckily, I have the blessing (or curse, depending on how you look at it) of being immune to caffeine, so I enjoyed my entire espresso. I thought it was extra great because I also really like salted caramel.

The espressos were served in conjunction with the sixth and final course, The World.

In theme with the slow service, they brought out our orbs of chocolate first, and then our waiter disappeared for a while. They were gone for long enough (and also did not give clear enough instructions) that the woman sitting two seats away from me started cracking open her chocolate orb with her fork. I had to stop her and told her to wait a bit longer, because there was a surprise coming.

The surprise, of course, is that the waiter comes out with some warm caramel sauce and pours it over your desserts to melt the outside chocolate shell and reveal the inside.

Inside was peanut butter ganache, Valrhona chocolate mousse, and salted caramel gelato.

On Quantum, I wasn’t able to eat much of this because it was so overwhelmingly sweet that it registered on my taste buds as bitter. However, I’m happy to report that the Navigator version was not excessively sweet. I was quite excited that I was able to taste all the ingredients this time, and in celebration, I finished the entire thing.

This was also time for celebrations. Two couples were celebrating anniversaries, so they each got a small slice of chocolate cake with a candle.

On Quantum, the Chef’s Table took place in a private room all the way in the back of Chops Grille. On Navigator, the Chef’s Table is actually inside the main dining room on the center floor. I wouldn’t say either arrangement was better or worse; it was just different. I guess this version on the Navigator is better if you’re the type who wants to brag to others that you’re having a nice meal, while the more private Quantum version is better if you don’t want to hear the quiet chatter and clinking of utensils on dishes from other regular diners.

Here are some photos I took from the perspective of our dining table.

This is what the Chef’s Table dining table looked like. While taking this photograph, I did not notice that one of the couples from the dinner was still there taking pictures, so that was amusing to notice after-the-fact while I was organizing my photographs. The couple there was very kind (as was everyone else at the table); I ran into this particular couple a few days later on the pool deck when I was out for a walk, and we had a great chat about their cruising adventures.

If you want to go on a fun scavenger hunt, you can zoom into the table to see where my seat was. It’s quite easy to figure out if you know that I am the only one who finished my entire dessert and drank my entire espresso.

Here’s another view of the Chef’s Table, but from the opposite side of the dining area.

After my second Chef’s Table, my assessment of the experience remains mostly the same as before. The thing that makes it special is the interactions and conversations you have with the other diners. There were some more shy diners this time compared to my dinner on Quantum, but after the alcohol got flowing, they got a whole lot more chatty.

If you want a high-class and elegant dining experience during your cruise away from the regular bustle of the main dining room or buffet, then I would recommend this experience for people who don’t have children to bring with them and have the budget or financial flexibility for the supplemental charge. My recommendation here still stands, even with the inconsistent service I experienced on Navigator compared to Quantum.

During my most recent cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas, I noticed that they had an excursion available called “Behind the Waves: The Insider’s Tour.” I obviously cannot just go in crew-only areas of the cruise ship on my own, so I figured that this would make for a great (albeit unconventional) first-ever cruise excursion for me. Prior to sailing, I saw that a lot of cruise add-ons were discounted, so I purchased a ticket to this tour for US$105.99.

For my cruise itinerary, there were two sailing days near the end of the cruise. Both of these sailing days had two timeslots each for the all-access tour, totaling four tours. I booked the afternoon tour on day 2, but after I boarded, I was notified that the day 2 afternoon tour was canceled and I was rescheduled to attend the day 2 morning tour instead. Unfortunately, I am extremely asleep that early in the morning, so I went to guest services to see what they could do; luckily, there was still space left in the day 1 afternoon tour, so they re-rebooked me to that one instead.

Upon arrival to the tour meeting spot, the staff asked us to answer a health questionnaire and fill out a brief acknowledgment that attending the tour, and thus exposing ourselves to the crew-only mechanical areas of the ship, comes with inherent risk and that we are assuming that risk voluntarily in order to participate in the tour. I am absolutely that annoying type of person who reads through contracts thoroughly and disputes clauses I don’t like; with that being said, the waiver that Royal Caribbean provided was entirely reasonable, so I had no issue signing with no further questions.

After everyone’s paperwork was sorted, the tour began in the main dining room. Hilariously, because I have always gotten the unlimited premium dining package every time I went on a Royal Caribbean cruise and have only dined at specialty restaurants (or the extended-hours café for late-night snacks), I had never eaten in the main dining room before (and probably would have never even seen it at all, if it wasn’t for the fact that the Chef’s Table experience took place at a special table deep in the main dining room).

We were seated at a few of the tables near the edge of the dining room, and shortly thereafter, the head chef came out to explain the logistics of food service. He walked us through the three-floor dining room on Navigator of the Seas, and how each floor is dedicated to a specific type of dining—standard, expedited, and flexible.

We were then led back into the kitchen where we were able to see the equipment used to prepare our meals.

This tour took place early in the afternoon, so the kitchen servicing the main dining room was still empty, as I believe the earliest timeslot for dinner service begins at or around 5 PM. However, this one random table had one random employee making pastries. I don’t know if these were for the café and they just happened to request certain desserts from this particular kitchen instead, but I instead enjoyed the thought that maybe she had just been planted there and was instructed to pretend like she’s making something so that she could be a paid actor for the tour.

The kitchen was quite large; the head chef weaved us in and out through all the aisles so that we could take a look at all the different equipment in the different subsections of the kitchen.

After wrapping up the kitchen portion of our tour, we were led out through a back door so that we could walk straight to the next crew-only area.

I found it amusing that they put all this effort into pasting an advertisement for Perfect Day at CocoCay onto the elevator, even though the only people who would see this elevator are employees (or guests on the tour). Maybe they are trying to advertise to their employees? Or maybe they just wanted the elevator to look less bland, considering that the picture they used of Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas is pretty nice.

Right around the corner was the next area of our tour, the loading zone. As is probably self-explanatory, the loading zone is used to load pallets of food, equipment, consumables, and other products onto the ship. At the end of each cruise, the same area is used to unload trash and unused goods that won’t serve a purpose during future cruises.

One of the logistics managers walked us through this area and answered questions about how the ship’s supply is controlled. He also brought us into the refrigeration unit to show us how the food was stored, and explained how the food portions were determined (i.e., based on passenger volume, expiration dates, and emergency buffer in case the ship cannot return to land for unexpected reasons).

He also let us take a quick walk through the freezer as well, though that was short-lived for most people. I took a peek inside, realized that it was quite literally freezing, noticed the icicles hanging down from the ceiling, snapped a photograph, and promptly fled.

After that, we took another crew-only shortcut around to the next area of the tour.

The garbage processing area is kept reasonably close to the loading zones, which makes sense because they’d probably want to easily get the trash off the ship.

The tour briefly brought us into the trash sorting area where they separate different kinds of garbage and recyclables, and it smelled absolutely horrific. I was surprised that the employees working in this area seem to be handling it well, even without wearing face masks or any other protective gear apart from gloves.

Hopefully they get paid generously, because smelling garbage this close to your face in an enclosed space with poor ventilation on a cruise ship sounds magnitudes worse than what people have to endure working as trash collectors on land.

Next up was the control room.

This is where engineers constantly monitor the ship, both to make sure it is in full mechanical function, and to make sure that no passengers are causing any security risks on board.

Apart from the main dining room, this was the second most peaceful area of the tour so far, so they used this space to do a little presentation about Navigator of the Seas.

I learned that the ship is apparently a lot older than I had originally thought, and it only looks fine and not particularly aged due to recent renovations. We were told that Navigator is about to reach the end of its lifespan soon, and in a handful more years, it will be moving on for its next adventure and fulfilling its next purpose, whatever and wherever Royal Caribbean will decide that may be.

This is also the portion of the tour where I was able to learn some more detailed specifications about the size of the ship.

Navigator of the Seas is part of Royal Caribbean’s Voyager class of ships. Funny enough, even with a gross tonnage of about 140,000 and a passenger capacity of about 4,000, it’s actually now considered one of Royal Caribbean’s smaller ships. Above Voyager class is the Freedom class, and then above that is the Quantum class, which holds the Quantum of the Seas on which I took my previous, first cruise.

There are also two classes above that on which I have yet to venture: Oasis and Icon. Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas, both part of the Icon class, are just barely under double the size of Navigator of the Seas in terms of gross tonnage and passenger capacity. I do want to take a cruise on one of those ships at some point, but because they are homeported in Florida, I will have to find some time to make my way over to either Miami or Cape Canaveral to do so.

After the conclusion of the presentation in the control room, we were led out to I-95 to take a shortcut direct to our next stop. I-95 is named after the Interstate 95 on the East Coast of the United States, a highway that stretches the entire height of the country from Miami, Florida to Houlton, Maine.

The I-95 on Royal Caribbean ships serves a similar purpose—it stretches the entirety of the ship and acts as a core corridor through which crew members can go from one side of the ship to the other without needing to reroute around obstacles.

On the other end of I-95 was the laundry room. I’ve seen major laundry facilities in hotels before, but the laundry area on this cruise ship was on a whole other level.

Unfortunately, by this point, I was starting to get seasick.

If you didn’t see the blog posts from my first cruise, you might not have the context that I easily get every type of motion sickness, but I managed to overcome seasickness and grow “sea legs” after the first day of my first cruise, likely because the ship was very large and relatively stable. I think another part of it was that my brain was able to quickly pick up on the motion of the ship and get used to the fact that it would rock back and forth, so it stopped sending me panic signals.

Well, the laundry room is below sea level. That means that any of the motion of the ship is in reverse, because the fulcrum of the motion is at sea level. This means that, whatever motion my brain was anticipating, it was literally exactly in reverse while I was in the laundry room. On top of that, these tours took place on sailing days, and the seas just happened to be particularly rough.

I was already starting to feel a bit unwell upon first entering the laundry room, but comboed with the heat, chemical smells, and long duration it took while they explained how exactly they did all the laundry, my condition worsened rapidly. By the end of the laundry room section, I was definitely seasick and wanted to go lay down.

However, they saved the best for last, and there was one final section of the tour I needed to see.

The final portion of the tour was the captain’s room on deck 10. As you’d expect from the name, this is where the captain and his highest-ranking crew operate and navigate the ship. It had an amazing panoramic view out of floor-to-ceiling windows.

I don’t know if, by this point, my brain was putting in a lot of work trying to adapt to the reverse motion of the below-sea-level laundry room and I had messed it up again by going very high up on the ship shortly afterwards, but I was on the verge of vomiting. After checking in with the tour guide, she said that the tour was over and she was just hanging out to answer any leftover questions people had, so I let her know I was feeling unwell, thanked her for the experience, and excused myself back to my stateroom.

Overall, I enjoyed the tour, and I’m glad I spent a few hours on a sailing day to get a behind-the-scenes look at the ship. I’m someone who enjoys seeing how things work, so this tour satisfied that interest of mine very well. On top of that, I want to make sure I stay humble, so seeing large-scale operations like this run by highly qualified and intelligent people acts as a motivating factor for me to continue learning and growing so I can keep up with the rest of the world.

Cost-wise, I think ~US$100 might be a little bit high for a tour like this, especially considering that the price I paid was after a discount. I am guessing that the all-access tour on Icon of the Seas or Star of the Seas would be longer, so a $100 price point might be more reasonable for those ships, though I’m guessing that they might already be scaling it up for the larger ships and it might already be more expensive there. Regardless, I guess the market demand is setting the price of the tour, and considering how long Royal Caribbean has been in business, they probably already have analytics-based algorithms in place to determine ticket prices.

With that being said, at $100 per ticket, I think this is on the borderline of being just an enthusiast’s tour (i.e., you’d only find it worth it for the price if you already have an intrinsic interest in the topic), rather than a generalist’s tour. I personally thought it was worth it for myself, but it is probably not a tour I would repeat in the future unless there was a very special version of it for the newest Icon class ships that focused deeply on the latest technological advancements.